Comment by PicassoCTs
2 days ago
The denial to market by vetoing is working, but its not a long term strategy. To push that back, the eu would have to push its own social network alternative, that undermines Metas growth in those fields. I can not see that yet-
> the eu would have to push its own social network alternative
Why?
A thing it seems like a lot of people are missing is that European companies are taken to the same (if not a higher) standard for compliance with EU law.
The EU regulates to ensure that market participants work fairly - these rules are generally not about trading barriers (if they were, they'd do it poorly)
The next social network will not be another social network.
Most parts of Europe long moved away from any social media dependency all that's left is IM/chatting.
Where only WhatsApp is a somewhat popular American software, the rest isn't.
Edit:// to clarify I am not saying people aren't using Instagram or even Facebook. My point is they don't use it to socialize anymore
> Most parts of Europe long moved away from any social media dependency all that's left is IM/chatting.
Glancing at people's phone screens while riding public transport, I beg to differ. Doom scrolling everywhere. Though much of it is arguably not really 'social network'-like, as most posts appear to be from strangers half a globe away.
IMO There is nothing classicly social about that, none of these apps have any central aspect that makes you engage with people you actually know.
they are just doomscrolling ad platforms not social media in my opinion. It didn't replace anything it just invented a new thing, social is stell well and alive in IMs, slack, discord, ...
I'd love to agree, but 99% of the people I know use Instagram more than once per day.
That's totally not my experience at all to be honest. But we all have our unique and different bubbles we end up in.
I know a lot of people with children quasi depend on WhatsApp for their children activities, when in other circles Telegram or Signal would be way more common and the obvious choice.
Edit:// also do they use it as social media or to consume media/ads? If they don't use it as mainly social my point might still be true
The question is if you see Instagram as a social media or as a feed.
On my own Instagram people who I know make up maybe 1 piece of content every second day.
Otherwise it is Ai generated content that is, unfortunately, very engaging but of a very low quality.
So I understand why there are a lot of people on Instagram.
(personally, I prefer to ruin my health with i IPAs over doom scrolling)
Yeah it does feel like social media is... kinda over?
Everyone I know is tired of the concept and tired of the tracking and profiling it entails.
If there were some huge multi-national social media company headquartered in France, I don't see any reason to believe things would be better. It might be theoretically easier to hold them accountable, but I suspect EU governments would be more prone to listen to their lobbying instead.
Why France?
France is not exempt from its anti privacy law attempts around mass surveillance.
I picked a EU country. It's an example.
I can subscribe to the people I want to keep up with just fine. I do not need alternative ad-money-fueled intermediaries that get to decide what to insert into and remove from my feed. If there are no indefinitely growing profits to be made there, that is perfectly okay.
Regulatory pressure can slow Meta down...